WITCH

Poetry attempted a suicide last night
planning to hang from the hook of a sagging moon
when a young bride suspected of being a ‘witch’
was battered by her own husband and in- laws
before being pushed to her death in the well ;
into which like a piece of roughhewn log she fell
with a baby throttled inside the tummy’s swell ,
drowning all her unripe wedding joys ;
her bruised body splashing curses at gods and goddesses
to whom she had nothing more about her woes to tell .

I remember her as a little neighborhood girl
with her disarming, toothless smile
when she used to clamor for chocolates
and speak about tailless lizards and stubborn cockroaches
before she was dropped out from village school
to be married off to a country fool .

Her smile seeps into my withdrawing days,
her laughter rips into nights of my poor soul
declaring her death to be an cock and bull story
she is a silent,sad word now behind all sound and fury .

comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

14/11/14